Welsh Movie Banner Seals $8 Million Financing Package

Financier Gennaker partners with Western Edge Pictures aiming to create a movie production and finance company with offices in Swansea and London.

U.K. film production company Western Edge Pictures has teamed with finance banner Gennaker to create a movie production and finance operation based in both Swansea, Wales and London.

Gennaker will invest up to $8.4 million (£5 million) over two years initially with what it describes as a "bespoke approach to each film deal."

It will typically seek to invest $337,000-$842,000 (£200,00 - £500,000) per project for individual investments and folios of titles.

WEP has also received a $150,000 (£88,500) investment from the government-backed Film Agency for Wales to "boost the international growth of the business."

Working closely with WEP with whom the company has an exclusive deal to find and co-produce projects, Gennaker has been created to help develop and produce fiction and non-fiction feature films, TV content, and related digital media.

The companies also share offices in Wales and in London.

Before the funding pledge, the partnership has already sealed co-production deals with production partners including the Irish Film Board, Matador Pictures, Samuelson Productions and the Wales Film Agency

WEP’s CEO Vaughan Sivell (writer/producer of Third Star and previously a senior producer at advertising giant Saatchi and Saatchi) also takes on the CEO role at Gennaker in partnership with former banker Andrew Thomas , MikeRattenbury (group legal counsel) and producer Franki Goodwin.

"We see WEP as the gateway to Gennaker’s exciting new resources," said Sivell. "WEP will remain an independent home for developing projects, whether in-house or with third party deals, but Gennaker’s new financial muscle will allow us the opportunity to overlap in all the productions and projects we undertake."

Feature length documentary Mr. Calzaghe, which centres on former middleweight boxing champion Joe Calzaghe, will spring from the partnership. Directed by Sivell, Calzaghe is set to begin shooting this month.

Other projects include Outlaws, a co-production with Samuelson Productions, written by Sally Griffiths and Rachel Cuperman, and A Visit To America written by Owen Sheers, set up as a co-production with Matador Pictures and the Wales Film Agency.